A group of scientists from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the United States has developed a drug that potently neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. In addition, they have shown that it is Effective both with the Omicron variant and once morest other strains.
The drug is designed in such a way that if the virus and its ability remain active, the drug should also be fighting iteither. This medicine is in the investigational process, and the results scientists can be read in ‘Science Advances’.
The drug does not act as an antibody; but rather as a molecule known as the ACE2 receptor decoy. Unlike antibodies, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has a harder time escaping from ACE2. This is because when the virus mutates to try to avoid the drug, it loses its ability to infect cells.
After making this discovery, the Dana-Farber scientists found a way to make This drug will neutralize SARS-CoV-2 in infected animals by giving them a safe dose.
How they used the ACE2 protein
The researchers found that if they included a part of the ACE2 protein, the cholectrin, this protein adhered more to the coronavirus. Thus, their experiments demonstrated that ACE2 decoys have potent activity once morest the COVID-19 virus because they trigger a irreversible change in the structure of the virus: they “pop” the top of the viral protein so that it cannot attach to the cell surface and infect cells, they point out from the Institute.
Thus, ACE2 decoys succeed in inactivating viruses. before they can even enter cells. For this reason, the scientists underline the “surprising power” of the drug, since it inactivates the virus permanently.
In addition, this protein manages to control and disable all COVID-19 variants because, no matter how much they mutate, all have to bind to ACE2 to reach cells, but before that happens the drug already disables them.
The researchers say that, in addition to treat antibody-resistant variants of SARS-CoV-2, the drug described in this study might be useful in treating novel coronaviruses that might emerge in the future to infect humans. This is because many coronaviruses in nature that are regarding to enter the human population also use ACE2 to infect cells.
Although the drug, called DF-COV-01, not yet tested in humansmanufacturing development is almost complete and the necessary preclinical studies for regulatory approval are underway, with the goal of bringing the drug to clinical trials.
